If Adler’s theory of human action relates to power, concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl’s brand of existential psychology, “logotherapy,” posit… - Tom Butler-Bowdon

When a natural instinct surfaces, the ego wants to have it satisfied, but the superego does not allow that. The ego submits to the “higher” superego, but is left with the problem. It begins a struggle with the impulse and, to reduce the pain of not satisfying it, engineers a defense that allows itself to make sense of its decision to submit.

Anna Freud took up where her father left off in focusing on the psychology of the ego, noting that humans do just about anything to avoid pain and preserve a sense of self, and this compulsion often results in the creation of psychological defenses.

What drives them, more than rewards, is the desire to find or create order where there was none before.